Getting on Boards Workshop

WITS is delighted to announce this important workshop for members – Getting on Boards. Diversity on Boards is a key national issue and enabling women to take up Board positions has been a key strategy for WITS since its inception. The WITS Talent Bank was circulated in 2004.

This timely workshop will focus on why you should join a Board and the types of Boards and organisations. It will help you understand the competency requirements for your potential Board membership. Then it will explore what joining a Board means and give you practical tips on serving on Boards and Committees. The workshop will be illustrated with relevant case studies for WITS members.

Our panellists are Dr Ena Prosser, Bride Rosney and Deirdre Smith.
Venue: Annesley Suite, Alexander Hotel, Fenian St, Dublin 2

RUNNING ORDER
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18:00 Registration
18:15 Workshop & Q&A
19:45 Networking
20:45 Event Ends

This event is for WITS Members. Each WITS member may bring up to 1 guest. There are a maximum of 40 spaces.

SPEAKERS
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Dr Ena Prosser
Ena Prosser is a Partner at Fountain Healthcare Partners, a life science venture capital firm investing in the EU and US. Ena is with Fountain since 2005 and is based in Dublin and her investments include with biotech, biopharma and medtech companies including NeRRe Therapeutics Ltd, Genable Ltd, Trino Therapeutics Ltd and Cappella Inc. where she served as an investor and board member. These companies address diverse diseases using new gene-based therapies, drugs and devices to address conditions including genetic blindness, inflammation-driven diseases, cough and heart failure.
Prior to Fountain, Ena worked as a consultant and held roles at Enterprise Ireland and Elan Corporation following the completion of her PhD (and BSc) in biotechnology at DCU. In 2012, she completed the Institute of Directors (IoD) Certificate and Diploma in corporate governance and is a member of the IoD. She also has a Graduate Diploma in Marketing from the MII.
Outside of the investment space, Ena has stayed involved with policy and led and chaired several policy initiates in intellectual property management at Irish government and EU level including several ICSTI/ASCTI Codes of Practise on the Management of IP for publicly funded research, government taskforces on IP and she is currently a member of the advisory council of Knowledge Transfer Ireland, KTI. Ena has previously served a as Board Member of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Health Research Board.
Curing blindness is of personal interest and Ena is honoured to work and support the work at board and committee level with Fighting Blindness Ireland Ltd and the Foundation Fighting Blindness (CRI) USA.
For fun, Ena gardens, cooks, walks occasionally and dreams of living on Inishbofin.

Bride Rosney
Bride Rosney is currently the Secretary to the Board of Trustees of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice of which she was the founding Chief Executive Officer.
Bride was Director of Communications with RTÉ from 2001 to 2009 and worked in the private sector as a communications consultant in the spheres of new technologies and the arts from 1998 to 2001. Between 1990 and 1998, she worked as Special Advisor to Mary Robinson for an eight-year period, during her time as President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
A graduate in Science from University College Dublin and Computer Practice from Trinity College Dublin, with over twenty years’ experience in education and educational research at both second and third levels, Bride previously worked as a teacher, educational researcher and school principal.
Since November 2016 Bride has been a member of the Top Level Appointments Committee (TLAC) and she is a Director of Druid Theatre and Public Policy.ie and was formerly a Director of Eirgrid and of the National Chamber Choir of Ireland.

Deirdre Smith
Deirdre is an Trinity Engineering graduate, tech entrepreneur and Chartered Director of the Institute of Directors.
She was co-founder and CEO of Zandar Technologies plc from 1999, which developed award winning broadcast video solutions for customers worldwide, including the BBC, Sky TV and CNN. Deirdre led Zandar through their acquisition in 2007 by Harris Corporation, a $5bn, 15,000 strong US headquartered ICT company. She held various management positions within Harris, serving government and commercial markets in more than 150 countries, until 2010.
Deirdre now sits on the board of the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI), the Governance Board of the Clinical Research Facility (CRF) at St. James’s Hospital, and is on several Advisory Boards and Committees.
Deirdre acts as a mentor and advisor to start-up companies and SMEs both through Enterprise Ireland and Green Point Consultancy. She also supports Going for Growth, an EI & EU supported initiative to help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses, as a Lead Entrepreneur, and is active with the DCU Ryan Academy business accelerators.
She is also a Lean Consultant with Redefine Consulting, working to improve the processes, performance and productivity of scaling companies using Lean Thinking & Tools.

Please book your place via http://witsireland.com/events/?event_id=45